This last item bugs the bejesus out of me, not because they take plastic neck bottles, but because they ONLY take plastic neck bottles, which means I’m not supposed to put my yogurt containers in the bin because they don’t have a neck. I sneak a few in anyway and shake my head at the silliness of this. The plastics are the same, after all, but if it doesn’t have a neck, they’re not willing to take it. I suppose it’s got something to do with the sorting machinery they use somewhere along the line. The necks make the containers easier to grab. Well, for heaven’s sake. Why not design the process to accept all plastic containers? Then I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about throwing my non-neck plastic containers in the trash and the next producer down the line would have more material available for use.

This got me to thinking about the kinds of things that should be recycled that we currently throw in the trash. What can we add to the list of things we already recycle? Here are my recycling priorities:

1. Plastic containers other than neck bottles and those with numbers 1 and 2 of plastic content

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5 thoughts on “Next on the List”

I know that you are probably right, but I fill my container weekly with yogurt containers and no one has ever said a word to me. Also, I have thrown children’s plastic toys in as well. Several years ago I called the “City” and enquired about what was acceptable and I was told that anything that had the recycling triangle symbol on it and a number was acceptable, so I have followed that instruction for nearly 13 years now, and never have I had any plastic refused.

I used to live in a suburb of Mpls and had my recycling picked up “curbside.” It was so unorganized. I don’t know if it’s changed or not. We had to separate paper, plastic and glass. I was very careful and always followed this directions. So why then did we have to separate things when they would come to pick it up, dump it all into one big truck all together??? What kind of sense did that make??

Now I live in a rural farm community and didn’t have anywhere to take my recycling and I hated that and felt so guilty. I did burn all my “paper” garbage for years. Not sure that was any better but at least I felt it didn’t take up all my garbage can room to be taken by the garbage man. We got “dumpster” things now in my little town for recycling about a year ago now and I was very happy. We have to take it there but it’s my pleasure to do it.

Here is my question. All we have are dumpsters. Two of them. In one we put in paper and the other we put in cans, glass and plastic. It doesn’t say “what kind.” Only by reading have I discovered what I should and shouldn’t put in there. It says nothing about what kinds so how do people know what should go in there? I put ALL PLASTIC in there. Should I not be doing that? The only other thing I’ve read that I shouldn’t be putting in the “cardboard” category is the cardboard for boxes that microwavable cooking items comes in and any boxes that you put in your freezer and bake them in . But I’ve been putting all cardboard in there. There is nothing to tell me otherwise except for the information I looked at myself.

Joy – I think what gets recycled depends upon the community. Our City’s rules don’t necessarily follow those of the County. Our City and County both demand a lot of particular sorting, but my husband drove a recycling truck for a different area and the sorting was cardboard in one bin, everything else (glass, plastic, cans) in another. The only thing that ever really bothered Hubby about how people sorted was when they put garbage (baby diapers, used cat litter, etc.) in with the recycling. Once he got stabbed by a hypodermic needle because it had been put into the cardboard, and of course hypodermics are considered hazardous waste, so should never have been put into the recycling. Hubby had to go through a year’s worth of blood tests to be sure he hadn’t caught a blood-borne illness.

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